Photo credit: http://thenewpostliterate.blogspot.com/2009/01/dr-john-m-bennetts-solo-and.html In the PLPNetbooks community (Australia work) this blog post surfaced after my interview with Steve Hargadon on The Future of Education The Title of the post is the same as mine.. Why Are We Here? It follows: Ok … Now I’ve got your attention I’ve just finished listening to the lastest episode of the “Ed Tech Live” podcast in which Steve Hargadon interviewed our very own community leader Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach. This is a .

I have been thinking a lot about how to manage the needed change process in education. Looks like a lot of folks have been playing with that idea as well. ISTE released their new NETS for ADMIN framing it as having the potential for - Transforming Education- Administrators play a pivotal role in determining how well technology is used in our schools. The NETS for Administrators enable us to define what administrators need to know and be able to do in order to discharge their responsibility as leaders in the effective use of technology in ou.

This was posted on the NSDC Website- felt you might find it s interesting as I do. The Department of Education has outlined initial guidelines for three components of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funding: the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund, Title I, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). You can find detailed information about the guidelines and the distribution of funds through www.ed.gov. In addition to distributing monies quickly to avert layoffs and stimulate job creation, a key principle that will gu.

I had the opportunity recently to facilitate a group of business, education, political and community leaders in a discussion about developing a workforce ready group of graduates in the 21st Century. I was given the task of relaying the experience. I have decided to share with you to see if you agree or disagree with these leaders’ ideas and action steps and why. I encourage you to read and weigh in in the comment section below. I look forward to your responses. Executive Summary Newport News Public Schools is moving quickly to address.

In his book, Shirky describes a "ladder of activities that are enabled or improved by social tools" in which "The rungs on the ladder, in order of difficulty, are sharing, cooperation, and collective action." (Here Comes Everybody, p.49). While I am sure Shirky never intended for anyone to use these steps as a planning tool for scaling lessons and helping students own their own learning and build their own networks, I do think the four verbs work nicely for 21st Centuryizing (if you will) what we could be doing in the cla.

I met Bruce through Will and I have to tell you from Day 1 I was impressed. Bruce Dixon is the founder and president of the Anywhere, Anytime Learning Foundation and consults to schools, school districts, education departments, Ministries of Education as well as technology companies such as Microsoft, hp-Compaq, Apple, Bertelsmann and Toshiba on 1-to-1 and technology in education. Bruce has more than 25 years experience working with schools and technology and besides that he and his staff really know how to put on a first rate conference. .

Sheryl's excellent adventure started in Australia! I was invited to keynote the ELH conference in Victoria, Australia.  As I was preparing to go an amazing thing happened that shows the power of the network. I had announced on Twitter I was going and lo and behold the most wonderful direct message came through, "Hi Sheryl are you interested in staying over at our place in Portarlington during your visit http://snurl.com/3hdn0?" John Pearce / mrpbps. John is an amazing author, presenter, and scientist. His wisdom about flor.

My life has been a whirlwind of activity since NECC and I have found it hard to keep up with blogging. I don’t know why, but I feel guilty blogging when I have other deadlines looming. Do any of you experience that? Is it illogical? Should I blog anyway, much like we still get the day to day things done at work or home, even when we have extra tasks on our "to do" lists. Or should I put 100% of my attention toward the deadlines and follow Grandmas’ rule of "work before play"? I’d love to hear your take. D.

Man, I love this work! Connecting and collaborating is something that really comes natural for me. I am the social cognitive learning theory poster child and I am finding that others also relate well to learning while observing and collaborating with others. Working with others online on common goals in an effort to improve education has impacted my personal practice more than any other type of learning I have ever experienced. I believe it is largely due to the impact situated communities of practice and networks have on self-efficacy. The up.

When you use a lot of technology to push the envelope and hang with others who do as well– it is pretty amazing when you find yourself in awe of the tools. Darren, Wes, Dean and I continually use tools to collaborate since we all live so far away from each other. Wednesday night at NECC wasn’t going to be any different than other countless K12Online virtual meetings we have had except that three of us would be together and Darren would be online- or so we thought. We ended up at a pretty ritzy restaurant. Once we were seated Dean .